New to the Game

HI. I am new to this and i need a little help. Last weekend I found myself at the Guitar Center feelin like Pookie from New Jack City. So am the proud owner of a Mpc-1000, Oxygen 8 V2 25 key midi controller, a Digidesign Mbox 2 mini, Pro Tools, Reason 3.0 and a set of 1/4in rca cables, and of course i have my laptop. I have no idea how to connect everything. I am not an idiot i just got overwhelmed with new information that i couldnt absorb fully. Can someone, anyone please HELP!! I spent all that money and it has sat in a pile now its time to make some killer sounds. Thanks in advance for everyone's help.

P.S. I am adding a korg triton rack mount sound module in the very near future

why are you adding when you have no clue about what you have already? that is a LOT of stuff to learn from 0. if i were you id read this forum and try things with what you have. ask specific questions when you cant find the answer yourself. but do make an effort. people like to see an effort on your part.

i think you should wait on the triton, pick one piece of kit and work it until you feel comfortable using it. in the meantime, dont expect any finished stuff, just be happy making a beat that you like with a few samples maybe. then when you know your mpc you can bring in the triton. and maybe a keyboard version would be better since theres a nice screen on it... a bit more intuitive i would guess.

take all that shit back to the store but keep the MPC

learn how to use the MPC then buy all that other stuff. read the manual, get the feel and master it.

How can you afford all that shit at once???? damn!

lol. I swear the folks at GC just swarm on folks who don't know what they are buying. Your another example. Your best option is to read the manuals.

Man, thats a lot of equipment to ask how to use. There may be more than one way to use all of that. You'll speand six months learning it before you can make a tune and you'll lose interest. Master one thing and then move on. You are going to drown otherwise.

Ok. Let's clear some things up. #1 I am buying the Korg because I am getting one hell of a deal on it. #2 I didnt ask how to use any of it. My question was how to hook it all up. #3 The amount of money i spent on it has nothing to do with the post. When i posted this topic i was told it would help instead i got critiqued on what i bought, buying or how much money i spent. Nobody said anything about not knowing how to USE the items only how to CONNECT them. If anybody can still answer that it would be great. Maybe i will go spend another couple g's on things i want today ask how to HOOK them up too.

have it your way jack! you did sound clueless.

bigpep31 wrote:Ok. Let's clear some things up. #1 I am buying the Korg because I am getting one hell of a deal on it. #2 I didnt ask how to use any of it. My question was how to hook it all up. #3 The amount of money i spent on it has nothing to do with the post. When i posted this topic i was told it would help instead i got critiqued on what i bought, buying or how much money i spent. Nobody said anything about not knowing how to USE the items only how to CONNECT them. If anybody can still answer that it would be great. Maybe i will go spend another couple g's on things i want today ask how to HOOK them up too.

unless you buy a 'studio-in-a-box' type piece of gear, then 'knowing how to hook something up to something else' technically comes under 'knowing how to use it'.

^ yeah what he said.

oh, you mean HOW to hook them up together?

get some midi cables an hook em up!

get some audio cables an a mixer an hook em up!

but seriously, does that help?

oh, heres a hint: you can be completely ignorant about your gear, but if you stay in one tempo for a project, you can be sure of your take lining up with the rest of your audio inside protools since it will have all been sequenced from the same machine at the same tempo... get it? anything you record will fit tempo-wise.

ok champ while youre doing that you can read up on midi and sh!t.

Thank you for the answer. It helped kinda i have those rca but not the midi cables. i just need to know the sequence of hooking them up like what oes to the laptop and what goes to the m box. Dude told me i had everything i needed to connect but didnt give me a midi cable. do i need those and from what to what do they go.I have a basic concept but i just want it done right thats the only reason for the post .

Bro for that kind of money he should be around at your house installing it. No shit man. Ring him and get him round. You just made his Xmas by buying all that shit. Or you can try and figure it all out in forums. Personally I dont know, but maybe someone else will write a full page post to let you know. INPUTS and OUTPUTS is my only advice.

Peace.

bigpep31 wrote:Thank you for the answer. It helped kinda i have those rca but not the midi cables. i just need to know the sequence of hooking them up like what oes to the laptop and what goes to the m box. Dude told me i had everything i needed to connect but didnt give me a midi cable. do i need those and from what to what do they go.I have a basic concept but i just want it done right thats the only reason for the post .

you can always experiment in connecting instead of waiting for a response .... i did it that way , learned it all myself, try exploring... part of it is reading the manual so you can know where everything is supposed to go..

check it out.

your going to run the outs of any sound modules, synths or mics to the inputs of the mpc.

you have analog ins that go to analog outs(analog being a 1/4" tipped instrument line)

midi ins and outs

and digital ins and outs.

heres how i have mine.

i have a presonus firebox instead of an mbox. but ins/outs are the same. i have my main outs on the mpc running into the input of my audio interface

i have my oxygen 8 "keyboard" midi out hooked up to midi in a, i dont remember if the ins are a/b or 1/2. either way, make sure its hooked up to an input.

when you have your rack synth, you can run a midi out from the mpc to the synth and set the midi settings to thru and record midi through the mpc. that means you can send a midi signal into the mpc, out of the mpc into the synth, and record the midi data. so then you will want to run your 1/4" cables from the outs of your synth to the input of the mpc. go to the input thru screen and turn it on.

now install the drivers for the oxygen 8 on your comp and you should be able to play any virtual instruments too. this being said, you can run an instrument line from the mbox output to the mpc inputs and record any audio that you might want to record.

just think ins and outs man. if you want to bring something into the mpc, you obviously have to go out of the external gear into the mpc. vice versa if you are trying to take something out of the mpc and onto the computer.

same with midi. if you want to control a program in the mpc with the o8. you need to run a midi out of the o8 and into the mpc. if you want to control thru the mpc, you need to run a midi line out of the keyboard, into the mpc, and out of the external synth/sound module. then run the instrument lines out of the soundsource into what ever you are recording too.


last but not least, i learned all this ish by myself. it sucked. but i did it. you should try experimenting with ish. once you get into it you will be hooking and unhooking ish all of the time. get to know your equipment so it doesnt catch you off guard when you have that platinum track banging in your head, and you lose it because you dont know how to route your gear. good luck

czy